St. Petersburg, FL – Alex Palou picked up where he left off last season by earning his 20th victory in 99 series starts in the NTT INDYCAR season opener in St. Petersburg. The Spaniard is the driver everyone wants to beat after seizing his fourth championship while driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, capturing eight victories in 2025.
Palou’s margin of victory at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was 12.4948 seconds over second-place finisher Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske. He surpassed the street course’s margin record set by Paul Tracy in the inaugural St. Petersburg race in 2003, when he won by 12.136 seconds.
“Amazing!” said Palou, about winning the 100-lap race on the 14-turn, 1.8-mile temporary street circuit at Albert Whitted Airport, where he led 59 laps. “It was an incredible day. I had such a great car and team. It shows all the preparation the team did during the off-season. Winning a race is pure excitement for me. Generally, I’m very proud of the amazing work everyone has done for the team.
“Winning is never easy,” continued Palou, who started fourth. “There were different tire strategies. I was surprised by the fuel saving of the No. 3 (Scott McLaughlin, the pole winner) and the 28 (Marcus Ericsson, who started on the front row). It’s in our favour knowing the Honda gets better mileage. You may push but the tires go away. You can always brake a little bit later, even one foot later, which makes you go faster. I was pushing and giving everything I had. I ran as fast as I could to make the tires last. Otherwise, you’d have to pit more.”
To add an exciting challenge and change up the race strategy, INDYCAR required drivers to use two sets of the alternate, softer red tires and one set of black, primary tires during the race. A minimum of two laps fulfilled the requirement on new or used sets. Palou pitted on Lap 37, making his new, alternate tires last well beyond the predicted 20 laps. He took the lead on Lap 42. Palou then ran used alternates for 30 laps and finally pitted on Lap 67, using the harder, primary tire for the final 33 circuits.
“It was a very solid day,” explained McLaughlin, who led the first 34 laps, having started on primary, black tires. “It’s a little frustrating that Alex Palou won but he just does a great job using car pace and gets track position. The correct decision today was to start on red tires. Alex was super-fast, but I think it’s a mixed bag of what tire you start on. If we come back here again, do you start on reds and just get them out of the way? Our performance was better on our first stint (on black tires). Then our tires (the alternates) didn’t really turn on and I had to save a little bit of fuel. We just missed the balance a little bit by being a bit cautious. My driving was good, I had plenty of speed, and the team execution was solid.”
Asked about having Tim Cindric back at Team Penske as his race strategist, McLaughlin revealed, “TC was new to me but he fit in like a glove. TC made me look at the race from a different perspective. The confidence and trust I have in TC to make the right calls at the right time allows me to focus more on driving.”
Driving for Arrow McLaren, Christian Lundgaard started 12th and finished third, earning his tenth podium, now in his fourth INDYCAR season.
“Our strategy and the car were good,” stated Lundgaard, whose first career win came at the 2023 Honda Indy Toronto event. “We missed it in qualifying yesterday. We made some changes. I knew what we did wrong and the car came alive today with what we corrected. Every time I’m on the podium, Palou is first. We put so much into the off-season moving into a new shop. It’s nice to get it done at the beginning of the year.”
Unfortunately, on the very first lap, Sting Ray Robb, driving for Juncos Hollinger Racing, carried too much speed into Turn 4 and slid into the tires, giving Santino Ferrucci and rookie Mick Schumacher no place to go. There were seven laps total under caution, with the second issue taking place when a wheel nut came off of Scott Dixon’s right-rear, also at Turn 4, causing him to lose that tire and end his day.
“I saw Santino lock up and I wasn’t aware that there was another guy on the inside locking up,” explained Schumacher, who started 21st, behind Robb. “Sting Ray seemed like he went a little deeper than what was supposed to be and that led to a chain reaction, unfortunately. Our real target was to finish the race and get in all the laps. I’m still happy about all the knowledge we gained throughout this weekend and things we can definitely take forwards. I’m looking ahead, not looking back, and will try and understand what we could have done better on our end. Qualifying may be one of them. We were blocked and we lost a bit of our momentum. Otherwise, we might have been in a better pack (in the race). When you’re starting in the back, things end up being difficult and tough anyways, but I think this just made it extra difficult for us.
“The AMR Safety Team pulled me out (of the car) right away,” continued Schumacher, shown with a 25th-place finish in his INDYCAR debut. “We had a decent enough car to drive and probably drive up the field. We felt pretty confident that we were on a good strategy and were interested to see what the others were going to do. That’s racing. As a team, we really needed that race to get everything sorted and not have doubts going into the next event (Phoenix one-mile oval). It’s just the first one and I’m very excited for the rest of the season.”
While the drivers are happy to complete the first race of the 2026 campaign, they are still scratching their heads about how to beat Palou. Who might be the title contenders? Chip Ganassi could win another title with Palou. It appears that Team Penske has recovered from a disastrous 2025 season that included 15 DNFs and another cheating scandal. McLaughlin started from the pole and finished second. Josef Newgarden, who started 23rd from a poor qualifying session, recovered to a seventh-place finish. And newcomer David Malukas, who started fifth, finished 13th.
Will Power, now at Andretti Global, struggled with braking issues to qualify 13th, but wall contact in the race relegated him to a 22nd-place finish after suspension repairs put him 45 laps down. Teammate Marcus Ericsson started on the front row and finished sixth, while Kyle Kirkwood finished fourth, recovering from starting 15th on the grid.
A driver to watch is Dennis Hauger, the 2025 INDY NXT champion, driving for Dale Coyne Racing, who earned a 10th-place finish. The Norwegian advanced to the Fast Six to qualify third. Drivers who finished in the top-11 spots only pitted twice.
The INDYCAR series heads to Phoenix Raceway this weekend for the first oval of the season on Saturday, March 7 (a double-header weekend with NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday), followed by the new street course for the Grand Prix of Arlington (Texas) on March 15.